I've been using this method to describe AI chatbots to non-technical listeners and I continue to find it a useful way to explain what they might expect from one. Especially since Google are aggressively advertising Gemini AI on TV right now.
If you don't know, Rory Bremner is a British comedian and most importantly, impressionist (not in the Monet sense).
You may wish to substitute him for Jon Culshaw, or if you're American, maybe Dana Carvey.
About 25 years ago, Rory became well known for his impressions of UK political figures like Tony Blair on various comedy sketch shows. If you were to listen to the audio of these, you would easily have mistaken him for the real thing. He was a convincing version of the UK Prime Minister.
But dig deeper, and ask him questions of policy, his opinion on the significant government issues of the day or for some bit of personal information that only Tony and his wife would know (like the location of those WMDs) - and he would be unable to give you an accurate answer.
That wouldn't have stopped him trying. Rory was a regular guest on Whose Line Is It Anyway and a skilled improviser. He would have answered any question you threw at him in a convincing manner.
AI chatbots can be very convincing. We're far beyond the limits of the Turing Test.
They are fundamentally text generators, they will always give you an answer to a question. They will never say they do not know, or are unsure, and will make up anything to meet their goal - which is just to produce an appropriate response to whatever text you feed in. Appropriate does not mean truth, or accuracy, it just means to return the most likely words that are related to the input. It doesn't know what those words mean - just that they're connected.
Encouraging everyone to remember that the AI chatbot they're speaking to is just doing an impression of a human is a good way to help us remember that we should take what they say with an appropriate helping of salt.
It doesn't mean that they serve no purpose. Rory Bremner was good at making you laugh.
But I don't want him to run the country.